Coega SEZ contributes billions to local economy

By MTHULISI SIBANDA recently in Port ElizabethJOHANNESBURG, (CAJ News) – THE Coega Development Corporation (CDC) has over the past year signed some 17 investors with an asset value of R27 billion (US$2 billion) to its prime special economic zone (SEZ).
It has attracted over 50 new investors with establishment in 1999.
Officials disclosed the figures at the just-ended Brand South Africa visit to the CDC’s SEZ in the Nelson Mandela Bay Metro in the Eastern Cape Province.
Some 7 200 jobs were created as of the last financial year ended in March 2017.
“We exceeded our targets during that period,” said Dr Ayanda Vilakazi, the CDC Head of Strategic Marketing, Brand and Corporate Communications.
Vilakazi said in the last financial year 2016/17, the CDC’s Small and Medium Enterprises procurement spend was 38 percent of the value of contracts managed by the company.
This amounted to R884 million.
With about 40 companies on site, the Coega SEZ was eestablished in 1999 over an area of 11 500 hectares.
The initiative is a multibillion-dollar industrial development complex customised for heavy, medium and light industries, adjacent to a deepwater port, Port of Ngqura, one of two ports in Port Elizabeth.
It is the only region in the country serviced by two ports.
Companies at the SEZ are in such sectors as automotive, agro-processing, chemicals, general manufacturing, business process outsourcing and energy.
Vuyokwazi Gwabeni, the CDC Business Development Manager, said the organisation was working on attracting investments into the fish farming sector.
“There is vigorous demand for fish from such markets as China hence our focus on aquaculture. Our seashore is cooler and thus conducive for commercial breeding of fish,” Gwabeni said.
– CAJ News